Notes on meetings and minutes

Notes on Meetings and Minutes

These notes are intended to give some guidance about the
formal aspects of running a departmental committee. The purpose of these formalities is not to
generate extra paperwork! It is to
ensure

(a)
that committee decisions are clearly understood and
recorded by all members of the committee,

(b)
that decisions are implemented in a timely way, and not
forgotten, and

(c)
that committee proceedings are accessible to all
tenure-line faculty members.

These are the principles that should guide any
administrative structure that we set up.

Description of the
“committee cycle”.

Agenda

One week or so before the committee is to meet, an agenda
should be circulated to all committee members.
This should contain, at a minimum, a notice of the date, time and place
of the next meeting, and the following agenda items

Minutes
of last meeting (a copy should be circulated with the agenda). One should ask for approval of these
minutes as an accurate record, and note any corrections. At the same time the committee should
approve the posting of the minutes to the secure faculty documents
page. If a redacted version rather
than the full version is to be posted, this should be noted here.

Matters
arising. Under this heading one
should review any items designated as “for action” in the minutes of the
previous meeting. Thus if the
previous minute contains the statement “it was agreed that Professor X
should carry out a certain task”, then Professor X should report back to
the present meeting on how s/he has carried out this agreement.

Specific
items of new business (if any). It
is helpful, though not essential, for such items to be supported by a
briefing paper circulated with the agenda.

Committee
chair/department chair other business – a place to bring up last minute
items.

Any
other business – hopefully there is not any, but if committee members have
items that cannot wait they can mention them here. Committee members should be encouraged
instead to notify the chair of matters they wish to raise so that they can
be included on the regular agenda.

Date
and time of next meeting – should be agreed at the previous meeting if
possible.

Conduct of meeting/compilation of minutes

The purpose of a committee (or of any administrative
structure) is to take action. Lengthy
discussion is often an important component of this process, since a group
cannot act until most of its members understand and buy in to the proposed
plan. But discussion is not an end in
itself, and it is the responsibility of the committee chair to move the group
from discussion to action. Often this
can be accomplished by saying, “So, what we have decided to do (or, are
proposing to do) is XXX”. If there is
disagreement on the committee it may be necessary to put XXX to a vote. Knowing when to do this is a judgment
call. By convention, a vote concludes
discussion of the item in question. Thus
one should ensure that everyone feels that they have had a fair chance to put
their case, before moving to a vote. But
one should not waste time ventilating intractable philosophical differences.

The minutes of
the committee should reflect its action orientation. Thus, the most important part of the minute
is something like: “It was agreed to do XXX, and Professor Y was charged with
implementing this decision and will report back at the next meeting.” Or “By a vote of 6 to 2 it was agreed …” Next in importance to record are factual
details like “The committee considered a letter from the dean proposing to
establish a new professorship” or “The associate head reported that we admitted
916 graduate students this year.” Of least importance to record in detail are
the specifics of any controverted discussion (in particular, it is usually not
a good idea to attribute the points raised in such a discussion to a specific
member). Here is an imaginary minute to
illustrate these points.

“The Committee considered a report from the Working Group on
Calculus which recommended that final examinations in Math 140 and 141 should
be replaced by one-on-one interviews in which students were asked to evaluate
their attitudes to differentiation and integration by using the Myers-Briggs
personality inventory. Extensive
discussion followed. Some members of the
committee felt that the proposed changes would help the Department become more
student-centered, while others suggested that a student’s feelings about the
processes of calculus might not be a reliable guide to his/her ability actually
to carry out these processes. On a vote,
the recommendation was defeated, 6 to 3, and it was agreed that assessment
processes in Math 140 and 141 should remain unchanged.”

After the meeting

The minutes should be circulated in draft form to committee
members soon after the meeting (within a week).
This has two purposes: (a) to allow corrections while the memory is
still fresh, and (b) to serve as a reminder of the agreed action steps. Committee members should be reminded to read
the minutes when they arrive and immediately to begin carrying out action items
that are their responsibility.

The minutes of meeting (n-1) should have been approved at
meeting n, and they are now ready for “publication”. Minutes are published by adding them to the
secure faculty documents page at http://www.math.psu.edu/head/faculty-docs,
which is maintained by Rosemary. In
general the minutes should be published in full (and they should be written
with this in mind). However, on
occasions it will be necessary to “redact” (edit) the minutes to avoid
revealing sensitive financial or personnel information. When this is to happen, the committee chair
is responsible for preparing a redacted version for publication on the faculty-docs page.

It is advisable to maintain a “for next meeting” file into
which one puts items that will need the Committee’s attention as they
arrive. Then, when the time comes to
prepare the next agenda, one need only open that file to see what it contains.